Minutes of the Steering Committee Meeting
19 October 2009
3:30 PM, 206 Samford Hall
(by Dennis DeVries, Secretary)

In Attendance:  Kathryn Flynn, Dennis DeVries, Russ Muntifering, Jim Wright, Larry Crowley, Emmett Winn, Bill Hames, Mary Ellen Mazey

Absent:  Claire Crutchley, Bob Locy, David Shannon

--The meeting was called to order at 3:33 PM

--The minutes from the 28 September 2009 meeting were approved with the change of the start time of the meeting to 3:34 PM instead of 3:04 PM. 

--We discussed the start of an agenda for the 10 November 2009 Senate meeting.  This agenda will be very full, already with two potential action items (possibly fall 2010 and spring 2011 academic calendars) and up to 6 information items. 

--There are too many information items to include them all, so we talked about priorities.  We agreed that the update from the Core Curriculum and General Education Committee is important and timely, and given that we did not get to the Ombudsperson’s report at the October meeting, that one needs to be included in November.   We will continue to consider the other information items, and will discuss and finalize the agenda at our next (2 November) Steering Committee meeting. 

--We spent some time discussing calendar issues, possible evening exams, etc. 

--One way to fit more into the agenda would be to provide an explicit limit for each information item (e.g., 10 minutes), so that we know the general length of the sum of the information items.  However, if we go with 5 information items, that still means 50+ minutes for just the information portion of the meeting. 

--Other issues to consider: topics for inclusion in future Senate meeting agendas, such as an update on the consulting issues, an overview of the SACS re-accreditation process, and workload policy information. 

--We will be considering issues related to PPS and facilities (and some consequences of pedestrianization). 

--The meeting was adjourned at 4:47 PM.